**This is the last post for 2014. I will continue this blog next spring with more weedy plants and a bigger focus on the grasses.**
I have mis-identified this Aster as both Solidago and Conyza; its young leaves are very nondescript and it does not flower until late in the season. However, once it did flower I was quite pleased to learn that this plant is actually a native aster, Aster ascendens known as Western Aster. I have found Aster ascendens in yards, along roadsides, and on trials in the Wasatch mountains. This plant is in the Asteraceae family and is a perennial. It has abundant purple flowers and when it goes to seed looks like raggedy pom-poms.
I have mis-identified this Aster as both Solidago and Conyza; its young leaves are very nondescript and it does not flower until late in the season. However, once it did flower I was quite pleased to learn that this plant is actually a native aster, Aster ascendens known as Western Aster. I have found Aster ascendens in yards, along roadsides, and on trials in the Wasatch mountains. This plant is in the Asteraceae family and is a perennial. It has abundant purple flowers and when it goes to seed looks like raggedy pom-poms.